COBOL Code for use in Projects Honoring Grace Hopper.

In honor of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, computer pioneer and inventor of the compiler, I learned enough COBOL over a weekend to write a simple program that does some rudimentary statistics.

The name of the program, ACTUAL-BUG-INSTANCES, refers to the famous joke she made at Harvard, when a moth caught in a relay caused a computer failure and she taped the unfortunate insect into her logbook with the note, "First actual case of bug being found."

You can see a picture of the log entry (and the moth!) here: http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/September/9/

I'm releasing this freely so that anyone who wants to include some COBOL code in a design honoring Admiral Hopper can draw on it.

Jacob Rose

Brooklyn, New York

September 17, 2016

If you just want to look at the COBOL code

Here it is: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jacobrose/grace_hopper/master/bugs.cobol

Running the code

You'll need to get a COBOL compiler. If you're on a Unix-style system, for instance a Mac running OS X or any Linux PC, you can use GNU COBOL, available from the Free Software Foundation here:

https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Cobol

(Click "Download," then choose the most recent version)

You'll need to get their "Gmp" math library as well:

https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Gmp

(Click "Download," then choose the most recent version)

And the "Berkeley DB" library from Oracle (formerly from Sleepycat software):

https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Berkeley_Database

(Click "Download," then click the latest version, set up an Oracle account, log in, and your download will begin)

If you're on a Mac, you'll need to install XCode

XCode is Apple's software development suite. It includes all the tools you'll need to build software on your computer. Get it from the App Store. It will take a long time to download and install, but it's the first tool you'll need if you are interested in writing software for OS X or iOS.

Open a terminal and build the Gmp math library

Lines that start with "$" are commands you'll type.

NOTE: Don't type the "$"! Everything after the "#" is just my commentary on each step, and you don't need to type that either!

$ cd ~/Downloads # or wherever your downloads are

$ tar -xjf gmp-6.1.0.tar.bz2 # or whatever version of Gmp you got

$ cd gmp-6.1.0 # or whatever directory was created by the above tar command

$ ./configure

...a whole lot of text will scroll by as "configure" figures out how to build Gmp on your computer...

$ make

...a whole lot of text will scroll by as "make" builds the Gmp library...

$ sudo make install

Password:

Enter your password, and "make" will complete the installation of Gmp.

Now build the Berkeley DB library

The steps are nearly identical, so I'm providing them with less commentary

$ cd ~/Downloads

$ tar -xzf db-6.2.23.tar.gz # slightly different options because file is .gz, not .bz2

$ cd db-6.2.23

$ dist/configure --enable-sql_compat # Oracle puts "configure" in a sub-folder -- the option gives you sqlite3, too

...

$ make

...

$ sudo make install

Password:

Now build the GNU Cobol compiler

By now you're a pro at this! Very similar steps to Gmp.

$ cd ~/Downloads

$ tar -xzf gnu-cobol-1.1.tar.gz

$ cd gnu-cobol-1.1

$ export CPATH=/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.6.2/include/ # tell "configure" where to find Berkeley DB

$ export LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.6.2/lib/

$ ./configure

...

$ make

...

$ sudo make install

Password:

Enter your password, and the COBOL compiler will be installed and ready to use!

Now you can compile and run bugs.cobol

Go to the directory where you checked out this code.

$ cd grace_hopper # or wherever bugs.cobol is

$ cobc -L /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.6.2/lib/ bugs.cobol -x

$ ./bugs